


Day 88

by gbMS



Series: Days [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Pete's World, Telepathy, The Void, The time vortex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-22 13:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gbMS/pseuds/gbMS
Summary: Day 88 of the new Doctor in Pete's World.Rose, Home, Job, Beard, Family... He needs a screwdriver and some adventure....he gets it.





	1. Screwdriver 563/14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This bugger was going to do wood."

The screwdriver had gone through many incarnations.

He’d make one, couldn’t edit the software the way he wanted, use it to make a slightly different one, then find something wrong with that, so he’d use that new one to help him construct an even newer one that would be able to do more. Rose likened it to a never ending cycle of screwdrivers making screwdrivers, which was funny until he noticed the small bedroom that had become his work station expanded into another solely because of the preponderance of screwdrivers and screwdriver bits. Jackie had said, on more than one occasion, that the house was too big for the two of them; but judging by the tendency for his tinkering to take over entire section of housing, maybe it was turning out their two big three-bedroom homes turned accidentally large five-bedroom-house was a bit small. A room for random items the Doctor found to dismantle —usually for parts and lately to get them for this particular screwdriver—and room specifically to bring said parts for said screwdriver tinkering. The room beside what had become his 'Work Room' then becoming, to quote Rose, ‘The Screwdriver Room.’

Sonic Screwdriver #1 had been large and unwieldy, at least by his standards, but with the limited tech he had at his disposal even his admittedly enormous brain could only do so much. But, he used Sonic Screwdriver #1 to make and retrieve proper parts— some provided by a certain broken toaster— for Sonic Screwdriver mark 2, whose unexpected explosion lead to a new dining table, a revision or two, and Sonic Screwdriver number 3.

He had finished putting together Sonic Screwdriver 14 with Screwdriver 8, now finally satisfied with the fact that it had most of the settings he needed, and he’d be able to successfully program the lesser Screwdriver 9 to put the software on to Screwdriver 14 easily… one last thing needed doing.

This bugger was going to do wood.

Ignoring the Jackie Tyler ‘language’ warning in his head, he pointed this new screwdriver at the door as he heard a knock at it.

“…busy with the screwdriver?” his soft human’s voice was muffled by the closed door.

“Yeah,” he said loudly. The door opened and Rose walked in. She was in her typical after-work, under-uniform outfit of tank top and black trousers, her shoes off and her hair down.

“Home early.” He announced unlike a question as she carefully stepped closer to him, treading carefully around the random pieces of breakable and/or painful metal bits scattered on the floor.

“Not as big a thing as they thought.” Rose got closer to him and bent down to his position on the floor to give him a quick kiss. “How’s Sonic Screwdriver number 563 going?”

“Hyperbole gets you nowhere, Rose Tyler. It’s _fourteen_ ,” he corrected, mildly annoyed at her persistent joke, “ _and_ it’s _fine_. I think I’ve gotten it to where I’m happy. Happy- _ish_. I can always change the hardware with this,” he held up what she assumed was a different sonic screwdriver to the one he was referencing despite the overwhelming similarity.

“What's wrong with five hundred and sixty three-slash-fourteen?” she squatted behind him, putting her chin gently on his shoulder to look at the screwdriver in question.

“I’m going to make it do wood.” He announced with strong determination and a hint of growl in his voice.

“Oh?” she went from intrigued to almost amused, “See you next year, then.” Rose pat his opposite shoulder.

“Oi! It’s not as easy as it looks!” The Doctor exclaimed. She laughed and nuzzled his near-by neck before pushing her aching self back up to stand.

“How long have you been working on getting it to do wood?”

“Three hours, forty seven minutes and twelve seconds.” He sneered at his new screwdriver before it twisted into his concentrating face as he mumbled, “give or take a few hundred years.”

She considered him for a moment, looking at the door momentarily before looking back to her overthinking paramour sitting on the floor. Her eyes bounced between him and the door a few times, the light from the windows reflecting off her irises when she did so, pulling his attention to her and her scrunched, thinking face. “Doesn't do wood.” She said quietly to herself.

“And I’m going to _make_ _it_ do wood. This _will_ open a wooden door.” The Doctor replied, glancing up from his project to see Rose thoughtfully staring at the door.

“I think you’re looking at the situation a bit wrong.” She said, still looking off as half her mouth pulled to the side in thought as she tilted her head slightly.

“What do you mean? I’ve tried realigning the special dampeners and reordering molecules but since all wood doors are technically from different trees or even several different trees their molecular make up if different enough the render the deresnofablicator almost useless. Which is ridiculous, because that thing should do most of the job.” As she heard him she turned back to face him with vaguely annoyed eyes.

“… an' you know full well I have no idea what you’re saying. I just hear ' _I’m so clever I’m so clever I’m so clever_ ' over an' over until you return to English and make sense again. But.” He smirked at her as she spoke, “It _does_ do metal, yeah?” The Doctor nodded slowly as if Rose were thick.

She pointedly did the same. Her blank, expectant face peering at him like he was missing something obvious. It was oddly reminiscent of the ‘big round thing, right behind you’ face he’d been on the receiving end of years ago that made him immediately attach to her, but a bit more frustrating because now it was coming from _his_ Rose and not a random girl on the street.

Even worse still, he still had no idea what she was getting at.

“The lock.” Rose said simply, nodding toward the door, “‘s not made of wood.”

His jaw went slack and he stared off for a moment. Rose let the silence set in a beat before she continued.

“More ‘en _900 years_ an' you didn’t think to unlock a _wood_ door using it’s _metal_ lock?” she patted his still-shocked shoulder. “Genius, you.”

He stared blankly at his screwdriver and back to the door before looking at her again. “Not fair, I almost figured it out and you! You…” he stumbled on the word as he jumped up to stand toward her and kissed her soundly, his hands on her upper arms. She laughed, crossing the room and turning the knob by the door handle to lock it. She stepped back and to the side, facing him while crossing her arms and waiting for him to try it out with a flip of her expectant hand.

He straightened and pointed the blue light at the lock.

There was a whir of the sonic.  
The pop of the lock.  
The quiet creak door swing open slightly.  
A ridiculous elated squeaky noise that he would never admit came from him.

Rose walked to the door, pulled the handle and opened the door ready to leave him to his inevitably gleeful tinkering. She paused with one hand on the door and another on it’s jam. “Ya know,” she started, turning around and smirking, “most _wood_ doors don’t have _wood_ hinges, either.” She turned around to leave.

“Oh, you’re going down for that.” He slipped his new screwdriver into his pocket and ran after her, hearing her feet pick up their speed and a squeak of laughter as she ran through the house, him chasing behind her.


	2. Learn

Rose picked up a note pad between immense piles of paper, the piles staring at her to be read before the day ran out. Ignoring the stacks as well as she could, she slowly flipped a few used pages of the notebook before she completely forgot what was so urgent for her to jot down.

There were familiar circular pictures on the note page, looking intricately designed with dots and lines, convex semi-circles cut out, sometimes concentric with others, sometimes left alone. There were pages and pages of them, each about three centimeters in diameter each all over the backs and fronts of the pages within the notebook. Seeing them made her feel a bit giggly and nostalgic. Those pleasing doodles pulling her face into a reminiscent smile as she stood distracted by the desk, she didn’t fully comprehend that she’d completely stopped for almost a minute just staring at paper with a wistful smile. The Doctor strode up behind her with a bowl of crisps and reached around her for the pen.

“I love these,” Rose said, quickly addressing the odd face of the Doctor before he had asked. “I remember seeing these circles all over the TARDIS. Little sticky notes on the monitor.” She smiled at the memory. “Convinced myself in one of my finer moments they were little reminders, like _‘Pick up more biscuits’_ or ‘ _Don’t let Jack hug anyone for more than five seconds_.’” He laughed which prompted her to chuckle lightly. She resumed flipping through the pages and pages of what she knew were writing but amounted to just pretty circles and dots in her mind. “There was one with like a million circles in it. All curved an' busy an' topsy-turvy lookin' but still gorgeous.”

He cleared his throat a bit at the mention of that note and motioned to the papers she was so involved in. “These ones only fill answers from the test I'm giving Tuesday,” he looked at her as she traced a circle with her finger. “That should take the thrill out for you.”

“Nah. Still very pretty to look at, even if they’re all science things,” she smiled to him.

“Do you want to learn?” He grabbed a crisp from a nearby bowl and threw it into his mouth.

“You’d wanna teach me?” She returned to her fond gaze from the paper up to him over her shoulder. The Doctor nodded and hummed an affirmative noise as the crisp crunched in his mouth. “Not sure you’d have been willing to do that before. I’ve only heard you say a few words, I’m guessing they're somethin' Mum would take offense to,” she said with a grin.

“Well, probably. But I don’t know. You never asked to learn, didn't know you wanted to.” The Doctor shrugged. Her tongue poked out through the bottom of her top teeth.

“I’d love it! But would you want to teach _after_ you teach? I might not be a fun student.” Rose said quietly but still tinged with glee.

“Oh, I don’t know, we could work out a reward system. Might work better that way.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, snaking an arm around her waist and planting a soft kiss on her neck before coming up for a moment, “If it’s the only way you’ll learn,” he kissed her neck again.

“Oi, I’m not completely unteachable, am I?” she feigned hurt, though the jovial sparkle in her voice gave her away.

“No,” He hugged her from his spot behind her, laying his chin on her shoulder and watched her finally flip to an unused page and rip it out before placing the note pad back where it was. “Just don’t know your interest in the subject matter versus the study method.”

“So, you just thought that while I'm with you and helping you adapt to my culture I’d completely ignore yours?” She asked, holding the new paper hostage.

“I assimilate!” The Doctor lifted up his head and pouted, “I’m _Mister_ Assimilate!” She laughed, turning around in his arms to face him.

“Mister Assimilate, sure.” She rolled her eyes before smiling and moving to sit in her desk chair and crossed her legs. “Licking furniture, poking goo, changing your accent on cue, trying to wear non-wearable items…” she said, waving the paper around as she listed and popped fingers as she recited her accounts.

“Right, well,” he stopped her listing before she approached anything else as she apparently had a prepared inventory, “Being a bit odd never hurt anyone.” He itched a sideburn pensively as he momentarily looked at the ceiling, “Except occasionally in the middle ages.” He corrected himself quickly and looked back to her putting his hands in his pockets. “Besides, I just wasn’t sure you'd want to learn all that.”

“’s part of your life, why wouldn't I want to? If I even can.” Doubt began slipping into her voice as it got a touch softer, “I'm willing to try if you want, but I don't know if my little human brain could handle it.”

“Rose, nothing about you is little,” he tried to assure.  
She turned her head to give him an incredulous look, one eyebrow slowly raising in hope that he would actually think about his words.

“Your brain! Brain! Nothing about _your_ _brain_ is little.” He flustered, correcting his words to more align with his thoughts.

“Yes, dear,” she obviously accepted his correction and handed him the torn note paper. “Anything you think you could teach me, you’re welcome to try. I don't guarantee I'll pick it up”

He sat in his desk chair and pulled her out of hers on to his lap. “Oh, you picked up Raxicoricofalipatorius, I’m almost positive you can take on Gallifreyan.” Rose looked at him doubtfully.

“Took me quite a few tries to say Raxicoricofalipatorius. And that’s just a word, ‘s not a bunch of delicate coils an’ stuff.”

“Well it’s a start. Let’s see,” he said, quickly throwing another crisp in his mouth and chewing it quickly as his hand went to work making the pretty circles more perfectly than if he had traced them onto the note paper. “Shopping list” he said out loud as he wrote English beside the circle. He quickly drew a different one than before writing beside it, “Bananas,” and drawing another, “more crisps.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by random images on the internet that simply will not leave my head.


	3. Paperwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paperwork be damned.

He was sat on the sofa grading papers, an annoying but fairly necessary part of the teaching process. At times he’d actually lamented out loud, to Rose's eternal amusement, the concepts these kids seemed grasp in class while maintaining an almost stubborn refusal to do so on paper. They seemed so intent on proving through papers that the concepts were either lost on them or we’re simply incredibly inarticulate children, while in class they seemed engaged and absorbent. Very frustrating. Rose was at her desk, immersed in daily reports from people or places or things… somehow she became a catch-all for the administrational oddballs as oddballs seemed to become more and more her purview at work. Her eyes usually alternated between bored and amused as she read several pieces of information, though this week the amusement part was definitely not the case. As she looked at a stack of bureaucratic paperwork that looked the size of an English to Sycoraxic dictionary, her eyes were dry and face void of any emotion at all. Still, as she would say, ‘must be done' and that included the papers in front of him. Honestly, his watching Rose in her bored state was just a modicum more interesting than doing what he was doing, regardless of the ease of his notes and grading near completion.

“I hate this.” There was a sudden thud right after her words. The Doctor looked toward a mess of blonde hair directly on the desk, face partially covered by the mess of yellow, her soft pink lips muttering as her forehead crashed onto the desk in dramatic, if painful, fashion. “I hate this, I hate this.”

“What?” he asked looking at her with amusement as she lifted her head, redness of her sudden collision with the hard surface making itself apparent on her forehead as she quickly organized the disheveled papers on front of her to form a cogent pile again.

“Sorry, was I speaking out loud?” Rose combed through the top of her hair quickly, trying to tame her now wild mess. “Because this is so intensely boring I swear the speech part of my brain died and was sucked out by paperwork aliens who feast on boredom.” She paused, “Only if I actually met them I might not be bored anymore because Torchwood would need _me_ to meet them.”

“Nah, you'd probably still be bored.” He tilted his head with his words, “They're boring.” He smiled and made another note in his paper before looking up to see her again. Rose was nodding slightly, her hand on her face in exasperation as a smile slipped through.

“…And then there’d be more paperwork after.” She almost laughed and he chuckled. She sighed and turned toward him, “Do you like it? The teaching? I could teach.” She paused again her face falling into a frown, “No. I could be a dinner lady.” Rose cringed at the memory. Her in a school, serving food petulantly while a certain teacher smirked at her from behind a partition. That was almost more annoying than the batty aliens trying to recreate the universe. She laid her forehead more gently on the desk than last time and sighed.

“Rose, you were a lousy dinner lady, missed a spot.” The Doctor said nonchalantly as he flipped to the next page, the cheeky smile betraying his voice.

Rose held up a finger in his direction while her head was still firmly planted on the desk, “I may too bored to use my legs and hit you for bein’ rude but I’m not too bored to throw things at you.” He put down his now graded papers and stood. The Doctor walked over to her, slid his hands to her shoulders and stared pressing gently, rubbing the tense muscles. Rose immediately melted into the massage, picking her head up off the desk to lean back. As he rubbed she let out a soft moan and rolling her neck to give him better access. “If _I’m_ bored _you_ must be losing it.”

“Nah. Adjusted.” He tried to shrug, but Rose whipped her head towards his and gave him a look between doubt and amusement. “Ing! Adjust _ing._ ” The Doctor corrected himself. She turned her head back forward and hung her head with an amused smirk. Rose closed her eyes, letting him continue his apparently miraculous massage. “Even fixed the vacuum.”

“...We don’t have a vacuum.” Rose mumbled, her voice gently vibrating his hand as she rolled her head again while he kneaded an area with his palm. He swallowed and tipped his head to one side.

“Well. Forgot that,” he admitted, feeling the rising heat in his ears at his slight embarrassment, “Ok, _may_ have broken something and then made a vacuum. Made a clock.”

“A clock?” Her eyes opened slightly, only truly noticeable with the flutter of her eyelashes. “You hate those things. Say they’re useless and annoying.”

“Very accurate clock. They’re more useful when they’re accurate.”

“A clock made of what?” she questioned, her voice sounding like she wanted him to confirm something she already suspected. He ceased his rubbing of her neck, leaving a hand on her shoulder while the other scratched his sideburn. The massage having stopped made her turn the chair turned to better face him in anticipation of his answer with lips pushed together in amusement.

“Uh." He looked up at the ceiling, still scratching the hair by his ear, thinking and looking as innocent as he could, "Other clocks?” he finally answered.

Rose smiled but stood abruptly and walked over to the hall as she grabbed her keys off the table by the door.

“We need to get out of here.” She declared, shaking her key-filled hand at him. He immediately marched passed her and opened the front door for them to escape out into the afternoon light.

“Yeah. We need to get out of here.” He put his hand on her lower back and lead her out of the house, closing the door behind them.

Paperwork be damned.


	4. Carniverous Muffins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose Take Tony Out for the Afternoon.  
> There are muffins involved.

Rose was haggard, sweaty, irritated, and obviously exhausted as she rolled her shoulder not carrying a little boy. The Doctor stretched and cricked his neck. She set her brother from her hip onto a chair by a table, futilely attempting to brush crumbs from his locks but they were for the most part, as the name implied, _locked_ in. The Doctor carefully slid a red tray of purchased baked goods on to the table before he placed a paper plate with a blueberry muffin before the little boy.

Rose looked at him incredulously. “Really?!” She pointed to the items on the tray, “Are those _muffins_?!”

The Doctor looked surprised between her and the very normal, non-sentient baked good and back to her. “What? They’re his favorite!”

Rose rolled her eyes at the Doctor before they both turned to watch the boy expectantly, eyes hopeful, hoping that he would eat the muffin before him. “Seems quite a gamble to make right now, Doctor.”

Tony sat, looking at his muffin, his favorite food, with a hardened fear-based refusal. Tony’s eyes were ringed with red, either tired from his running toward and from sentient nummies or irritated from the nibbles they attempted to take in between. His arms were crossed in an entirely too Jackie-esque manner that, if the Doctor thought about too hard, sent chills down his spine despite the warm feelings he had for the boy and his mother.

Rose turned to the Doctor, leaning a bit closer to him to speak softly in the crowded restaurant.

“Mum was surprised that we even _wanted_ to take Tony for the day, let’s not get ‘im back to Mum thinking that his _food_ is going to eat _him_.” She said in exasperation. “He doesn’t talk much, now if he doesn’t eat I’m a bit scared he won’t open his lips at all.”

“Well, I guess this is preparing him to exit the ‘put everything he can in his mouth’ stage.” He tried to cover his misstep with humor and reason. Rose, as usual, wasn’t buying it.

“He’s a kid. It’s an oral thing.”

The Doctor huffed a nearly surprised laugh and pretended to cover Tony’s ears as he’d seen her mother do. “Oi, Madam, little ears!”

Rose rolled her eyes, smirking a touch. “I meant drooling on stuff, tastin' it. Young _humans_ to do that for a bit, as you know.” Rose took a pointed bite of her own muffin, putting it in her mouth and chewing with a smile toward Tony. She was trying to convey to her brother that it was good and safe even though the very act was making her wretch inside. The Doctor ruffled Tony's hair and was met with only a glare from the still cross-armed, petulant child.

“Technically _I’m_ under a year old and _I_ don’t do that.” Rose managed to swallow her bit of muffin and stare at him as if he were being purposely dense.

“...No, you’re the thousand year old man who still _licks_ _everything_ ,” Rose said in an amused fashion.

“It’s a valid way of determining chemical make up!” he exclaimed, looking a bit shocked that that would have even entered her mind as part of the argument.

“But did the creepy, evil muffins deter _you_ from continuing to lick random objects?” Rose absently picked at the muffin, vaguely feeling a sense of satisfaction as her fingers remained un-chewed. She tore off another chunk and popped it into her mouth, consciously chewing and making yummy noises enough so that her brother could hear.

“Yes and no, but I fail to see how my licking things is a problem when it does what it does.”

“It’s a problem, _Doctor_ , if _he_ never wants to put anything in his mouth again cause he’s scared that it’ll try to eat him like those muffins with the sharp teeth and,” she grimaced and motioned near her eyes, “eyeballs.” She shuddered. The Doctor begrudgingly turned back to the cantankerous toddler who was still reddeningly angry toward the stationary sweet in front of him. He grimaced a little, but addressed the boy in a sweet tone.

“Ok, Tone, little man, I promise this muffin is _not_ carnivorous and will _not_ try to eat your tongue. Those muffins were from another planet. The bad, bad muffins are gone now. This is a good muffin. Good muffins are pleasant and tasty. Watch,” he took a big bite of his banana-nut muffin, crumbs of muffin and nuts clinging to his face as he chewed happily, making Rose flinch involuntarily at the newly ingrained memory. “Mmm. Dlissuss Mffns” he said with his mouth full, eschewing all propriety and speaking with his food in his mouth. Rose covered her nose and lips to hide her smile at his antics before hitting his shoulder.

“ _Rude_.” She informed him quietly, “An’ a bit gross.” He smiled and winked to her before returning his eyes to the seeming statue of an angry toddler.

Tony still sat, arms crossed, mouth tightly clamped. His curly hair littered by crumbs making him look like he rolled in the remnants of a baking company, which he did, in a way. The Doctor swallowed his absolutely ginormous bite and looked at the willful little boy.

“If you eat this muffin we'll go get you a new toy from the shops.” The little boy perked up at those words, “aaaand give you a candy if you don’t tell your mummy that we’ve exposed you to extra planetary carnivorous muffin creatures bent on discovering their next meal, okay?”

They were almost certain to have little Tony only understand the ‘Mummy,’ ‘toy,’ and ‘candy’ parts, but hopefully at least got the ‘don’t tell' bit as well. Tony happily shoved a chunk of blueberry muffin in his face as if there was no barrier at all.

Rose’s stomach clenched as she happily, though sickeningly, watched her sweet little brother inhale his muffin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by one of my greatest fears:  
> Muffins Eating Back.


	5. Toys

They entered the toy shop for Tony, but on second glance it might have actually been for the Doctor. He was zooming around with tiny toy airplanes, teaching Tony to fly recklessly, both entirely on a sugar high of candy floss and ice cream. Too bad there wasn’t a tiny police box toy set – not that he had left any stone unturned in the little, overstocked toy shop to try and find one. He had, however, taken a moment to use forethought and stock up on figurines and toys he claimed were solely to properly illustrate his bedtime stories.

Rose simply laughed and picked up a few things that looked cute and age appropriate for her little brother, but the age appropriate part didn’t seem to shock or stall the Doctor at all.

“Age 5 an' up? He's two, Doctor.” Rose said as she looked at a box in her hands, the content of which he was demonstrating for the giggling toddler.

“I’m older than 5, the mean between Tony and I is way over 5, I think we’ll be safe.” The Doctor said giving her a glance as he lifted little Tony to 'fly' with two flight toys firmly in his little hands. Tony abruptly dropped the toys, giggling solely at the flying, crumbs falling out of his hair and leaving a little trail of where he had been.

“You know that's not how that works.” Rose said, scooping up the now discarded flying toys and putting them back into the box, snatching the last vestiges of fun time from nearby before putting it in and closing the box. The Doctor put down the little boy and she watched Tony try to toddle off to something inevitably destined to be drooled on or destroyed. The Doctor deftly grabbed the small boy’s closed and wiggly fist, keeping him tethered to him. The bigger of the two grew a gigantic smile and reached for an item on a shelf.

“Old school! 3D specks! Oh, I love 3D specks! Did you know they saved the world, Tony? They’re excellent!” He put the cheap glasses on and started dancing about to the amusement of the little boy before squatting and wiggling back and forth. Tony placed a grubby hand on the glasses and yanked them off the Doctor's face.

The little boy attempted to taste them, but the Doctors quick hands removed them from his waiting slobbery mouth and placed them over the child’s eyes. Too big, they slid off repeatedly until the Doctor held one of the earpieces in place.

“See, look at the clerk.” He pointed, turning Tony to see the man behind the desk, “he looks normal, now look at me and your sister.” The Doctor turned Tony again to be able to look at him and Rose.

Tony immediately started crying and wiggling out of the glasses. Tony ran the few steps directly at the Doctor’s chest with a pitiful wail, knocking the Doctor back a unexpectedly.

“I guess it’s a bit disorienting,” He put the light plastic glasses on and smiled as picked up Tony to soothe him. Tony threw his arms around the Doctor’s neck and held on. He hushed in his crying but still sniffled.

Rose giggled seeing the Doctor back in the 3D glasses as he looked around, “Dig the nostalgic vibe!”

He turned to look at her with his big, goofy smile, his smile fell almost immediately, eyes quickly darting up and down as he looked at Rose, patting Tony's back gently. There was Rose, behind a dark film of floating void stuff, where the almost inky blobs radiating from her body should have been… they were like a thick coating, shading Rose's entire body.

“Nonononono…” he mumbled and frowned as he reached for her cheek and cupped it lightly with the hand not supporting her baby brother.

“Something wrong?” asked the darkened figure of Rose. He took off the glasses and handed them to her, the eyes that were behind them still concentrated on where the black blobs would be. She put glasses on and saw a very different Doctor she'd seen last time she wore these, worried and not almost manically happy, hairy face, and a toddler on his chest, still with little floating orbs bouncing with his movements. The entire picture was a little weird but heartwarming, though nothing compared to the off-putting nature of his worried, frightened eyes or his horrifyingly still posture.

“Look at your hand,” he said quietly, beginning to gently bounce the now quiet toddler who seemed to be fading quickly, either from his sudden emotional outburst or a sugar crash. Rose looked down.

Her hand was covered in a shroud of void stuff, like a thick, semi translucent glove. She moved it and the void particles bounced and flowed no slower than before but with very few spaces between to see her actual hand. “Well that’s proper disturbing…” she swallowed harshly, trying not to panic in front of her baby brother. Rose took off the glasses and readjusted to the light, offering him the glasses back.

“How… how…” his voice lowered, he took the glasses she offered and stuck them into his pocket before tugging her closer and holding her tightly against his side. He felt her erratic, frightened breathing despite her attempt at a calm exterior.

She could almost feel his eyes darting back and forth as he tried to figure out possibilities of why and how as he brought his lips to the top of her head and held her tighter. Rose put her hand firmly on his back and pushed off of him gently.

“We’ll figure it out.” She whispered, leaning up and putting a kiss on his flabbergasted mouth. She slid her hand beneath her brother, transferring the almost sleeping boy onto herself, wrapping his arms around her neck and shifting his legs to either side of her torso.

The Doctor quickly went to the counter and paid for the glasses and a few new toys, grabbing the paper bag they were inserted to quickly as he put a hand on Rose's lower back and started ushering to the CARDIS as fast as he could without running or disturbing the near-sleeping toddler.

“How many jumps did you even do?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now life gets abnormal.


	6. Argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literally an argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA the land of italics _everywhere_

“43, Rose. You said _forty_ three. That’s _forty-bloody-three_ times through the void without a capsule.” The Doctor opened the front door with a jerk, letting her almost stomp in in frustration about the subject. They had arrived home, almost safe after dropping her brother off at his home so they could drop the pretenses and have a proper row.

“I was _there_ , Doctor. I’m quite aware how many trips it took.” Rose said quickly as she walked in, pretty much throwing her keys on the table by the door and barreled into the sitting room, trying to get out of this conversation as speedily as possible. He walked in behind her and almost slammed the door shut behind him as he refused to let her get away.

“It only took two trips, _in the TARDIS_ , to get enough void stuff on you t _o suck you through to hell_. Forty three trips _without it_ and I… I have no idea what that would do!” He waved his hands in frustration, following behind her. “Except making you apparently saturated in enough background radiation so that you begin to look like the Bogey Man to toddlers!”

“Background radiation which, _as of yet_ , does nothing. I’m fine!” she irritatedly assured, clutching at her brow bone in one hand to dispel tension as she walked the sitting room. He followed, obviously bent on getting more details.

“How do you know it does nothing? It could be doing something right now!” he growled.

"We've had it for years! Everyone who crossed before is fine! Mum, Dad, Mick's, Jake, the team, all fine!"

"Yeah, little amounts! _Little_. Like we were splashed but then you decide to go _swimming_ in it!"

“Been checked by medical every time I came back from a jump! Little headaches, dehydration, and bit of radiation, barely ‘nough to explain by an x-ray! Blood work, scans, the lot! An' you’ve just used your bloody screwdriver a bloody million times and saw nothing so it’s doing nothing!”

“Yet with _these_ , that we found in a _toy shop_ ,” he angrily waved the cheap 3D specs at her, “I can see something that those tests couldn’t, so it can’t have been _that_ thorough! You could be changing!”

“I’ve been fine!" She grew more irate. “I did those for over a month, it’s been months since and I’m fine, see?” Rose fanned out her hands.

“That’s not the point, Rose, your changes may be subtle! Or internal! Or simply waiting!” The Doctor ran a hand up through his hair in exasperation, not lowering his voice even slightly, “I just… It’s just! It’s infuriating!”

“I’m fine. _I’m fine!_ The jumps bothered me the first few times but I was fine, am fine. Eventually the void was dead and it was easier an' I was still fine. Mum an' Mickey found a way to go through my wake an' it didn't get to them as bad, so _they’re_ fine.”

“Your wake?” The Doctor’s jaw dropped a bit when he heard those words, his jaw setting and his teeth grinding together as he tried to process exactly what she could have meant before she even started explaining.

“It’s like… I already dove in, they could just follow easy, less dehydration, still radiation.” she said quickly, regretting the words the moment they left her lips.

“ _Your wake?!_ ” the Doctor's face reddened, traces of an Oncoming Storm crossing his eyes. He put his hands on his face and closed his eyes trying to calm himself, muttering something about her setting new records for jeopardy friendly before he slowly pulled his hands down his red face in exasperation.

“Oi! You know I had to!” She stepped closer to him, her face was matching his in color. Her usually calm voice gaining an angry quality that rivalled his, almost growling. “Split the jumps with Mickey, but 'snot like you’d just trust any old person who popped in! And someone had to fix it. We couldn’t! You could. I had to go!” she closed her eyes and huffed, thinking quickly before reopening her eyes and looking into his more calmly, “I may have wanted to come home but we needed you. All of creation isn’t less important than whatever side effects I get, yeah?”

“Jeopardy Friendly,” he grumbled under his breath, not disagreeing with her statement but not one to let her get in the last word. Rose visibly froze before slowly reddening again and moving very slowly.

“And _what_ do you mean by that?” she enunciated her words slowly, almost daring him to finish the thought, the calm she had just tried to establish vanishing completely.

“It’s not the first time you’ve blindly jumped in–“ the Doctor started explaining, Rose's eyes widened at his words and she interrupted quickly.

“You’re really _not_ using that right now.” Rose said quickly. She closed her eyes and put her hands on her face exasperatedly, feeling her face heat with her anger quickly bubbling, “You’re _really_ _not_ using the Bad Wolf in your argument—” the Doctor crossed his arms.

“It seems to be your pattern of behavior.” His smugness caused her anger to flare, and her arms went straight at her sides and she felt as if the look on her face was earning the name of Oncoming Storm herself.

“You want to talk patterns of behavior _Doctor-Drop-Rose-Off-Where-She's-Safe_?” Rose stared hard into his eyes her voice raising a touch as the words spilled out of her mouth, “Which _never_ works out for you, does it? Because _your_ unilateral decision making seems to cause my 'pattern of behavior,' don’t it? Sent me home an' I ripped open the TARDIS to get back. Sent me to a bloody parallel world and I went through the void to get back. So it would seem, _Doctor_ , that when you stop being a git I’ll stop doing things to get back!”

He deflated at her words, calming himself as the anger visibly drained from his face while he came closer to her, “and we’ve already come to the conclusion that _I’m_ going to stop that.” His anger still falling away, he took her hand tentatively and feeling no resistance he wrapped his fingers through hers. His fingers warmed with hers around them as they slowly entwined with his and gripped back. Both their anger seemed to dissipate faster the moment the two made contact. He looked deeply into her eyes, large brown ones almost pleading and scared instead of their previous frustration. “And I’m glad you did it, Rose. Both, really. But that much voidstuff? _That_ many jumps? And headaches? You _never_ said anything about headaches. You should have said.”

“Been a _bit_ busy an’ distracted this last few months.” Rose reminded, “Do you really think this wouldn't have been a screamin' match anyway when you heard forty three jumps?" She tilted her head in doubt, "an' I didn't have the headaches the last few times. Figured they just died out or I got used to 'em.”

He grabbed his sonic screwdriver again for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes and, to her dismay, let go of her hand as he scanned her again. With a familiar whir and equally familiar frustrated eye roll on Rose’s face he passed the screwdriver over her. The Doctor grumbled looking at the screwdriver almost irritated at the inanimate object as it gave him no new or different information. “I may still have some adjustments to do,” he growled, obviously displeased with his lack of results more than the device itself.

“Big ol’ Time Lord brain of yours will figure it out.” She said confidently. She crossed her arms and hugged herself, “Just… Doctor, if I’m not supposed to get cross about all the dangerous stupid stuff you've done, and there’s loads of that, you’re not allowed to get this angry about mine, yeah?” Rose's voice returned to normal, the anger diluting from her face as he slowly nodded begrudgingly. Her soft huff of relief came just before she crashed her soft body against his, instinctively inserting herself between his arms and leaning against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and held her as closely as he could. Their angry breathing slowing down to match each other's as they regained their normal composure.

_Big Old Time Lord Brain._

He blinked in realization, “I think I can figure this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit sorry not sorry. Argument needed to happen. They're both stubborn.
> 
> ...Struggling with the next one. Might take me some time.


	7. Void

He had a hard time looking past her gaze into her mind, this wasn’t something he made a custom of and getting lost in her eyes had become a habit between them. The Doctor gave her a look of reassurance when her eyes wavered.

“If there’s anything you don’t want me to see, just imagine a door and close it.” The Doctor looked further, seemingly looking through Rose's head entirely before closing his eyes.

“Okay,” Rose let a breath out in a little huff and rolled her eyes slightly, resolutely closing them after he did.

There were no doors. Doorways, maybe, but no doors. Big rectangular entrances to loud noises and feelings and smells of what seemed to be people—not times or events as was the norm in his past experiences, limited though they were— but people had their own rooms, contained but open.

Frankly, asking Rose to close off part of herself was both an onerous obligation and a bit pointless in retrospect. This was Rose, the likelihood of her closing off anything to him was pretty low.

He tried to ignore the loud corridors of memory that made him absently grin, the smiles and laughs from the looking prominent memories of her and multiple hims overlapping like ghosts. Hugs and smiles and hands fitting together like cogs in a clock while running or skipping or walking. There were loud laughs and jokes and a general feeling of belonging, even frightening bits tinged with affection.

“I see nothing that would cause a headache,” he said out loud as he looked past the doorways of her mind, “except maybe for Jack and your mother being incredibly noisy, even as memories.”

She laughed slightly, sending a seeming breeze carrying a feeling of joy through the space he occupied. The joy of it causing him to breathe deeply and smile at the feeling.

He found what he needed quickly.

The Doctor's brow narrowed as squinted, mentally digging into the jumps from parallel to parallel.

The canon made loud chugging and whirring noises, like a pounding engine. The Doctor felt his jaw instinctively set as he watched Rose walk from the lab and noisy machine into the dark unknown. The minute she hit the darkness it felt much like she was forcing her entire body through a large room filled with thick, custard-like air. In a few jumps it felt simply like honey before simply feeling like water or air. Before long it took no effort to leave from one reality to the other, but the darkness never changed until near the end of her jumps, barely registering. Like a wind tunnel he could see the voidmatter deflecting around Rose, her body fighting the drag and pressure of the invisible force. When Mickey and Jackie did come, they really did follow behind in her path, barely being touched as they travelled in her wake.

Seeing the _how_ wasn’t softening his expression.

 _Forty bloody three._ He was pretty sure he had never been so very irritated by a bloody number.

He saw each trip, each destination, each return. She overshot before they were able to refine it. Before it was just following Cybermen who followed a sphere, now those wounds were healed and there was no direct route to follow any more. The first was like walking forward inch by inch during a windstorm.

Wrong universes.  
Right universe but wrong planets.  
Right universe, right planet but wrong years.

She was slowly getting closer and closer to him, Donna or the TARDIS, each time the actual travel got easier. Eventually walking where she needed to be with the ease of almost an invisible elevator simply depositing her where she needed to be.

 _That_ was certainly not softening his expression either.

“Anything horrible in there?” he heard her nervously ask. Careful not the break the mental link, he opened his eyes to see her already open worried ones.

“It’s like... You went through the void and the void didn't like it, it resisted you. Friction. but you went through enough that you got covered in particles from the void, coated you in the very stuff you were trying to get through, allowing you to move more and more easily through it. But it takes _quite_ a bit of void to move as easily as you did.”

“But will it do anything? Because I’m pretty sure that’s the bit we should be concerned with, yeah?” The Doctor was still in her mind, she could almost feel him rummaging through whatever he needed to. “An’ ’s not hurting anyone else, right?” Rose whispered hopefully.

“It’s not _contagious_ , Rose.” The Doctor joked, smirking a little and mock-rolling his eyes in jest. “and I don't see any ill effects from it. But I don’t know. It’s _the_ _void_. It’s a dead space, a nothing, at most it’s a barrier. You’re covered in bits of dead space, a nothing-like interstellar friction reducing grease. Teleport without a capsule, and what sounded like sonic ionization waves coming from the canon would have… well… galvanized them together. Now you have weird… barrier dead space particles solidified into a squishy, semi-permeable suit of dark, voidy armor. It’s not absorbing through your skin as much as just sitting there on it.” He sighed, “I’m not entirely sure what’ll do. But if it got on, it should be able to get off.”

“How?”

He shrugged slightly, “I’m going to see if there are any more hints in here,” he stroked her cheek gently with a near stationary finger, “I’ll be quick.” She nodded almost imperceptibly.

They closed their eyes again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kept re-writing this until it exploded into two and now I'm rewriting most of what I've already written.  
> Yay.


	8. Bad

Rose was more than willing, she was determined, like she knew what had to be done. She seemed to pack pockets or a backpack like a scout, she had what she needed to survive the twenty minutes wherever she landed. Somehow she knew how to partly refine the semi-telepathic circuits to find him with a computer and yell at screens in hopes of getting his or Donna’s attention. Being with him for so many years had given her the knowledge of what to about saying and doing in her jaunts through time. One wrong word would be bad, so she kept pertinent facts to herself, knowing to go to UNIT, being almost called by the TARDIS, returning to Pete’s World for a quick look at the timelines and a truncated and irritated debrief to anyone who felt she was required to give one before passing through the void again.

In her memories she was moving no more gracefully than she did normally, just slowly losing resistance in the one place that would resist. It was easy. He had rationalized because everything was dying, but before it died, it was still easy. The more it accumulated, the less it attracted, like there was a maximum absorption and she had reached it. Nothing touched her, like she was part of it, she was a recognized inhabitant that the void no longer wanted to be rid of. Once the void was dead it was a quick jaunt through darkness, but the stuff on her remained.

The lights reflected in a circle in her eyes as she stared at her reflection in a bathroom mirror, taking a deep breath as memory her sadly looked in the mirror for a second. _‘Something's coming. Something bad.’_ She grabbed her familiar blue leather jacket and slipped her arms through the sleeves. She making herself ready for one of her last jumps. He saw her reach for the biggest gun.

That same memory repeated, but he concentrated again on the voidstuff. Everything about Rose was darkened by the voidstuff but the reflection in her eyes stayed the same. ' _Something’s coming. Something Bad.’_

_Something Bad._

The void didn’t seem to do anything. The darkness just accumulated, made it easier for her to move. Steeping her in it like the void ship, coating her like she lived in there. She’d be pulled in in a second if it was opened again.

And all he could think about was her face as she was pulled though the air toward the breach. Her pleading eyes looking toward him, arms outstretched from the lever, tears ready to escape as she headed to the bright wall of hell filled with Daleks and Cybermen and the same black substance of nothing.

_Something Bad_.

“That’s a scary thought.” Rose interrupted the image, erasing it with the familiar tones of her voice.

“Sorry. Mind got away from me.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “Doesn't usually happen.”

He went silent again, brought back to her reflection in the mirror. _‘Something Bad.’_

He was growing angry and she could feel it. The air became stuffy and seemed to heat almost making it hard for her to breathe.

Instinctively Rose's hands went to his shoulders, stroking up the sides of his neck in attempt to comfort.  
Very quickly she thought of all the instances she could. Her eyes tightened, brow furrowed, slight pressure mounted on her sinuses as images flew through her mind quickly, Rose concentrating and just hoping that he was seeing them as clearly as she had just seen his. Slowly, pictures permeated her mind.

Locked in a room with zombies; His old leather self pulling her to his side.  
Closing bulkheads as she ran; Him finding his way back to her.  
Him being eaten by a reaper; the two looking at each other on the street.  
Rose, alone, surrounded by Daleks; the two embracing on the TARDIS.  
Him sending her home; The two of them on the TARDIS.  
A broken mirror; Hugs in a darkened spaceship corridor.  
Him descending in an elevator; Swinging hugs in an orange space suit.  
Her face being sucked into a telly; Seeing each other across the lot.  
His being turned into a child's drawing; Walking together eating fairy cake.  
The initial image that started it: Rose being pulled though the air; the corresponding image of her face on a darkened street popped into view. How the sight of him prompted ridiculous smiles from her. Hope the running made her immediately forget the last three years.

“They keep on trying to split us up, which does happen, but it never seems to last long, yeah?” she muttered, breathing deeply. His anger abated, lifting like someone opening a cooler on a too-warm day. She felt him take a long exhale to calm himself, hands relaxing in their positions along her face. “S bad, I get it. Could be worse. We’re pretty good at bad by now.”

He hummed an agreeing noise before saying, “The Doctor and Rose Tyler, stuff of legend.”

She smiled, her voice tinged with confidence. “The Oncoming Storm and the Big, Bad Wolf.”

A shiver went up his spine.

 


	9. Wolf

The Doctor vaguely registered a single spot of wet on his finger, a slow drip from one of the tips of his fingers down the side, to his thumb. He opened his eyes to her closed ones, watching her silently let tears flow without sobbing.

“Sorry,” he said softly, “you might find old memories reawakening. Side effect,” he lightly stroked his thumb along her cheek, careful to break the link as he continued his exploratory inspection.

 _“I am the Bad Wolf.”_ Her voice echoed that eerie ethereal quality it had had all those years ago. _“I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space.”_ He froze in place, almost unable to move while he used all his faculties to process this.

 _That_ was the last memory that he wanted to be reawakened.

Her eyes reopened with a snap, the light brown shining a bright gold before immediately settling into his now widened brown ones. Her golden irises brightening, filling his vision with unavoidable, near blinding gold light.

Suddenly moments and images flashed in his mind, quickly moving snippets of her life, faster and smoother than they had before.

Her voice as she looked at graffiti on the tarmac. _‘The same words written down now and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between me and the Doctor. Bad Wolf here, Bad Wolf there.’_  
The Heart of the TARDIS.  
Golden Rose.  
Her eyes glowing.  
GameStation.  
Jack waking up with a gasp.  
Streaming tears.  
The Kiss.  
Removing the time vortex from Rose after _minutes_.  
His own death after _seconds_.  
Her dizziness.  
_‘There is something of the Wolf about you.’_  
Banging on white walls.  
Headaches.  
Beach. Sobbing goodbyes.  
Headaches.  
Jumps. Headaches. Jumps. Headaches. Jumps. Jumps. Shifts.  
The TARDIS.  
Her eyes lightly glowing, like a light reflected off them. While walking. In the kitchen. While dressing at the mansion. In the screwdriver room. In the bedroom.  
Her eyes now.  
_Bad Wolf._

His vision cleared instantaneously, the bright light receding into her eyes so suddenly he inhaled in shock.

_“I can see everything.”_

Her the gold faded and Rose—his _brown-eyed_ Rose—looked back at him in wide-eyed shock, clearly having seen the vision as well. He slipped his hands off her face and slid around her, hugging her close. She put a closed mouth against his shoulder, her blood-shot eyes unfocused on anything in particular. Rose shut her eyes and took a deep breath before pulling away just enough to look at him as calmly as she could.

“I remember.” Rose said quietly, her eyes darting to the ceiling. “More of it than I did. ” she looked back at him, “’s how I got back to you, isn’t it? 's a link. That’s what I said years ago, those words. Here and there, it’s a link. I could _see everything_ and I _saw_ this. Why didn't I remember?”

“You can’t know about your own timeline, and there was too much information for you to retain. Human brains aren’t meant to have all that knowledge, you were going to burn. So I took it out. You had it, I took it, I died,” that reminder earned a flinch from Rose as he spoke, “I put it back into the TARDIS. But I have no idea what this means. A scar, an echo…” He ran a hand down his face quickly, shaking the flesh on his face in frustration, “But scar or not, it’s definitely there and I have no idea what it does. The last scar caused by time and space generated enough energy to run the TARDIS… and yet… you’re fine. You’re not glowing or omnipotent _or_ _dead_ ,” The Doctor quickly pulled away to grab his screwdriver from his pocket and ran it down her again, earning a pair of rolled eyes and a slight swat from Rose. “Perfect blood pressure, good blood flow,” he flicked his head and clicked his tongue, listening to his sonic screwdriver, “ _great_ synapses.”

“Is that a Time Lord come-on?” Rose raised an eyebrow, “Needs work. It’s no _'I think you need a Doctor_ ’” she nipped her bottom lip cheekily.

“Oi!” he smirked, “Though I must say that was a pretty good one,” her brushed her fallen hair over her ear, his hand settling on her jaw as he looked into her eyes, “this is just… impossible.”

Rose smiled at him, her light brown eyes twinkling slightly in the light as she pecked him quickly. “Not impossible,” Rose shrugged, “Just a bit unlikely.”

“Oh, alright. Series of highly improbable un-replicatable circumstances.” He sighed and touched her cheek again, looking into those previously gilded eyes, now knowing full well that they weren’t just reflecting. “That’s _two_ things that humans simply do not have, but you’re still quite human. You’re tapping into the time vortex, the little echo in your head when you and the TARDIS did that. Bad Wolf helping you understand things and see things…”

“Can't I just understand you because I know _you_? Am I just such a stupid ape that that can't be possible?”

“No, _that_ much is likely just Rose Tyler being Rose Tyler, but… inter-dimensional transport mechanics, Rose. You said it, first day. And while the canon could eventually measure time lines, there’s you shouldn't have been able to know what they were or actually read them.”

Neither of them said a word for a moment. Her heart beat was strong and hard as she swallowed, obviously upset but unwilling to show how much. He laid his hand on top of hers.

“This is the bad, yeah?”

“I don't know. _Bad_ Wolf, maybe. We’re pretty good at bad by now.” He parroted what she had said to him mere minutes ago. “We’ll figure it out.” Rose nodded, unconvinced. “You know,” he decided to change the subject, hoping to distract her from the unknown worst-case-scenarios that were likely in her mind as well as his, “You didn't block off anything.” The Doctor tilted his head, “no doors.”

“Didn't think I’d need to. Should I have?” Rose's eyes quickly widened, “Oh, God, I didn’t miss somethin' horribly embarrassing, did I? Can’t be blamed for anything done before I was ten,” her mouth pulled quickly, “or as a teenager! I haven’t a few centuries of adulthood to make up for it! I’m sure even teenage you—” his breathy chuckle broke off her defensive rant.

“No, Rose, I didn’t see much more than what I was looking for.” He sniggered. “And teenage me—well, the equivalent of teenage me—” he crooked his neck and cringed a bit, “not great either.”

Rose relaxed a little.

“You know…” the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, “You could have gone in. Into my mind, I mean. Seen what was there.” He almost swallowed the words. “A door once opened—”

“—Could’of, yeah,” she interrupted, closing her eyes momentarily. Rose took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair in thought as she reopened her eyes, “Can’t say I wasn’t tempted. But thing is, I think memories are important. They’re the only thing left, sometimes. An’ if you wanna share ‘em with me then you will. I gave you permission to go into my head, seems a like a thing that needs permission.”

He smiled at her, his brown eyes large and unexpectedly proud at her answer. He quickly put his lips to hers, kissing her with an unanticipated passion, letting go of her hand as he slinked his around her waist and crushed her close. He broke the kiss, leaving her shocked and breathless.

“I, uh,” Rose blinked and gained her breath back, running a hand up the side of her head through her hair, “I take it that was a good, then?”

“Mmm,” he nodded in affirmation, putting his forehead against hers the minute she lowered her hand. His forehead against hers for a moment.

 _It's a link between me and the Doctor._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Halloween season, which means most of my free time is eaten up making costumes. Which means updates may slow down at the end of October!
> 
> See you on the next Day. Should be up soon.


	10. (Epilogue on Day 88)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This didn't quite fit in the the next day and wasn't a good stand-alone.

He’d called off work at the school for a few days and basically locked the two of them in a medical lab at the Torchwood facility. And, barring it’s ability to detect anything, a few more in the house, barricading it against possible telepathic detection and delving into the hows and whys of the sporadically golden eyes.

She didn't seem to have control over it, whatever it was. Alright, they knew what it was. She didn’t have the control over the vortex she used to. There was no floating or ability to control life or death, just sight and attachment. She was part of it. She wasn’t the Big Bad Wolf of fairy tales, she was the  _Little_ Bad Wolf. Miniature, even.

…only saying as much made her face contort in such a way that he knew ' _Little Bad Wolf_ ' was going the way of ' _Rose the Dog_ ’ and disappearing from all thought like the thought never existed.

It wasn't predictable, he couldn’t just casually mentioned a subject that he inevitably knew about in depth that she couldn't know anything about because, well, she still didn't know anything about it regardless of her link to the vortex. His life, though, she understood. The mechanics of time, she understood. Concepts only available those with at least decades of time travel, she understood.

The mechanics of time. While it made complete sense that the time vortex would allow her a better understanding of how time works—not to mention the years of time travelling with him and inciting reapers, accelerating a need to understand consequences a bit more even on a human level—it was still on a beyond what most humans who lived linearly and thought of time as a straight line with distinct beginnings and end points had yet to think of. The timey wimey she understood; The wibbly wobbly, the inside and outside and alternate, aborted or truncated timelines...it was almost as if she were becoming Time Lord without the species. Time Lord without the Gallifreyan. It was pretty disturbing to think about.

And a little exciting.

Okay, maybe  _a lot_ exciting.

Not that he'd say that. He'd keep that in. For now. As best he could.

The knowledge she had was sporadic. Conclusions she had come to would stay in her mind, but unconnected other concepts she had yet to consider were not. It was like slightly accelerated learning, more like slightly accelerated introspective understanding.   
It occupied her thoughts in a much different way that it did his: while he concentrated on the how’s and what’s, she kept returning to the same concept; if she was still human.

It was her suggestion that he go back in. He was more than willing to attempt to find everything out externally, but seeing as that was yielding no information and a continuous need to make new adjustments to the screwdriver… Honestly she was growing to hate being scanned by that damn screwdriver, he could have been able to tell that even if she hadn’t rolled her eyes so violently or been quite as vocal about it. And the twenty minute to four hour wait for him to add a new setting or cobble together a new machine for it to effectively go off with a don't and tell him no new or different information was not helping her easy agitation.

… her approach made more sense. _Intimate_ , but it made sense.

 _Domestic_ , but made sense.

Very human, that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this while eating a muffin.  
> Muffin's gone now.


End file.
